An MP has revealed that she took her own church to task over its opposition to Renee Webb?s failed anti-discrimination bill.

Shadow Finance Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin said she feared the stance of the African Methodist Episcopal Church could lead people to brand Christians as hypocrites.

Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin, who serves on the senior usher board of St. Paul?s AME, Court Street, was strongly in favour of Ms Webb?s Human Rights Amendment Act bid to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.

MPs gave the bill the silent treatment, with only one other member speaking on it before it was thrown out of the House of Assembly on May 26. This sparked a national outcry, with hundreds marching on the House for a pro-democracy rally last Friday.

Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin said fellow MPs had questioned why she wasn?t under the AME church ?whip?.

?I said that on issues where I believe the church may have taken a stance that was incorrect I have to stand on my principles, and my principles tell me you cannot discriminate. Within the church pulpit you have every manner of every sin that?s ever been created. I think they took the position based on a (view of the) homosexual lifestyle. I don?t think they understood the wording of the bill. It was a human rights bill but I think they took it as a gay rights bill,? she said.

Referring to the recent decision of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) to throw out her complaint against Government Minister David Burch?s use of the term ?house niggers? on his radio show, Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin said: ?I did say to the presiding elder Malcolm Eve who was in the public gallery on the Friday the debate broke down that I wished I had seen the clergy sitting in the gallery in protest the week before when the HRC said it was OK to be called a house nigger.

?I heard nothing from them, hence I made a comment that you can?t cherry-pick your principles. I also said to Malcolm Eve that people will look at that situation and we could understand why people think that Christians are hypocrites, and that distresses me. You either stand for human rights or you don?t. Don?t tell me you stand for it when it?s in this little corner and not in that little corner. Are you not going to take tithes from your drug addicts because they?re sinners? I don?t want to hear that.?

Mrs. Gordon Pamplin said the reason she did not speak on the bill was because she was waiting for Human Rights Minister Dale Butler ? who was also in favour ? to address it first.

Mr. Butler has previously said he missed his opportunity to do so as the debate collapsed while he was in the bathroom.